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Since I completed NROL4W last weekend, this past week has been a ‘rest’ week from weight training. It may be the rest, it may be some naughty food choices, or it may be hormones…but this week I just didn’t feel my best. Kind of pudgy… kind of blah. I probably don’t look any different to others, but I guess since I just feel kind of sluggish and lazy, and I feel like it shows. Oh well… all I can do is just move on and stick to the healthy food choices.

Since this past week was resting from weights, I tried something new: a group rowing class. It’s kind of like a spinning class… an instructor leads the class through a work-out, with varying intensity/resistance. The class instructor was a young guy who looked pretty in-shape, but the two other students aside from myself (yes, there were 3 students total) were a middle-aged man and woman, both of whom looked to be in decent shape, but not super athletic.

So the class began. The instructor did some one-on-one time with me to explain how rowing works, the proper form, etc. I appreciated the help, and he said I caught on quickly, so that’s cool! We rowed for a while, varying in intensity by the instructors commands. After some time rowing, we did some bodyweight lunges from one side of the room to the other. We also did a lot of core/ab exercises… crunches, planks, etc. I’d say that was the most difficult part of the class.

We finished off the rowing work out with 3 sets of 500 m distance rows, striving for personal best times. Since it was my first time, obviously I was going to get my personal record that day… haha. My sets got faster with each time — my last one I was able to do in about 1 min 58 seconds I think… which I felt pretty good about.

Overall, the class was pretty cool. It’s fun to try new things — and when you’re generally in good shape, trying new things is a lot less intimidating. I may do the rowing class again this week, since I think I will hold off on starting the new weight lifting program until next week.

Also on this week’s agenda is to try a TRX class. I’ll try to remember to write about it after I try it out… but it looks like a fun twist on strength training.

So… co-ops are pretty cool. I had heard about them before (mostly online resources), and people made them sound like a good way to get a lot of product (local, organic, or both) for a better deal. Well it costs me $30 each pick-up, and I get about 15 lbs of produce in my half-share. So that’s an average of $2/lb price for my produce — but it’s all organic. So I guess that is an okay deal. But the thing I appreciate most is that this is forcing me to be more adventurous and creative with my food. I have never tried beets… and I got some in this last pick-up. I will channel my inner Dwight Schrute and make some beet chips using this recipe I found online. I also got some of these weird purple potatoes in my pick-up, which I guess I will eat even though I try to limit my starchy carbs.

It’s a fun adventure, this co-op thing. And it supports local agriculture/farms, so that’s nice.

Oh and I thought I would post this funny Portlandia snippet where a couple who gets produce from a co-op get an alien-fruit (durian, ew smelly!). I’m still waiting for the day I find a durian in my pick-up. If that happens, I will be both excited and horrified.